ETCHED IN BONE MUSIC
Eric Bijon is a French composer, arranger and jazz musician. He studied classical accordion and composition at the conservatoria of Dijon and Paris. He has composed, arranged and performed with the French singers Mano Solo and Alain Bashung.
From 2005 to 2008, he was accordionist in the French National Jazz Orchestra. Going back to his first love of classical music, Eric performed as an accordionist in a show called Vous qui savez… ou Ce qu’est l’amour at the Opéra de Lyon, a reorchestration of music by Mozart. He has also performed and composed for the theatre, for circuses and short films.
His latest compositions are called Stations et promenades, a programme for his chamber jazz trio. They were recently performed and filmed in an old Kodak warehouse in France. See ericbijon.fr.
In 2020, Eric has composed the original soundtrack of the interactive animation ‘Mano Solo, Vive la Révolution’ (created by Nicolas Rouilleaut) as a homage to singer Mano Solo.
About the pieces he composed for Etched in Bone, Eric Bijon says:
After watching the film, I started reflecting on the orchestration, choosing instruments that are not traditional, but that each region of the world could make their own. Percussion was an obvious choice; the guitar, equally, is a reference point in contemporary music internationally. Although I did not want to compose ‘ethnic’ music, I really wanted to use clapsticks which, in the film, are a connecting thread which marks the presence of Indigenous people, including in the funeral march. The instruments in my studio completed the effect of the composition, where the wind of my accordion is like a didgeridoo. I also felt like using the beautiful melody of the Gunbalanya women’s choir. I harmonised and orchestrated it, respecting its notes and original intonations.
While composing the different pieces, the soundscape that emerged is rather calm and tranquil, probably to express the obvious justice of the return of the remains and to represent the eternal rest of the ancestors in the land of their birth.